Models Definition

The contents of this page were moved to Model Basics.

The only exception is the guide on sequelize.import, which is deprecated and was removed from the docs. However, if you really need it, it was kept here.

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Deprecated: sequelize.import

Note: You should not use sequelize.import. Please just use import, import(), or require instead.

This documentation has been kept just in case you really need to maintain old code that uses it.

sequelize.import can only load CommonJS files, and is not capable of loading ecmascript modules. Use native import if you need to load ecmascript modules.

You can store your model definitions in a single file using the sequelize.import method. The returned object is exactly the same as defined in the imported file's function. The import is cached, just like require, so you won't run into trouble if importing a file more than once.

// in your server file - e.g. app.js
const Project = sequelize.import(__dirname + '/path/to/models/project');

// The model definition is done in /path/to/models/project.js
module.exports = (sequelize, DataTypes) => {
  return sequelize.define('project', {
    name: DataTypes.STRING,
    description: DataTypes.TEXT,
  });
};

The import method can also accept a callback as an argument.

sequelize.import('project', (sequelize, DataTypes) => {
  return sequelize.define('project', {
    name: DataTypes.STRING,
    description: DataTypes.TEXT,
  });
});

This extra capability is useful when, for example, Error: Cannot find module is thrown even though /path/to/models/project seems to be correct. Some frameworks, such as Meteor, overload require, and might raise an error such as:

Error: Cannot find module '/home/you/meteorApp/.meteor/local/build/programs/server/app/path/to/models/project.js'

This can be worked around by passing in Meteor's version of require:

// If this fails...
const AuthorModel = db.import('./path/to/models/project');

// Try this instead!
const AuthorModel = db.import('project', require('./path/to/models/project'));